In July 2014, I was in South
Korea to attend a short term training with fourteen other colleagues from Technical
Training Institutes for a period of two weeks.
It has become a necessity to
carry our own mobile phones while travelling abroad to keep us connected with
our family and friends back home. As soon as we land in the foreign country,
the first thing that we do is to get a new SIM card of that country. While the
SIM card in Thailand is easily available off-the-shelf that can be bought like
any other stuff without having to produce identity documents or filling up
forms (some even free in the airport), getting a mobile SIM card in South Korea
for the visitors/tourist is difficult. I have been told that only those
foreigners who hold the resident card will be eligible to get the connection
and the resident card is issued to only those who have to stay beyond three
months in Korea. Hence, the only option is to use the landline and internet
during the short duration of stay in Korea. There is free internet in almost all the places in South Korea.
When our Government introduced
mobile phone in the country, we embraced the technology with excitement and I
didn’t expect the revolution that this technology would transform our lives at
such a speed. Owning a smart phone has made me fully dependent on the
technology. It has exploited my life so much that I feel I cannot perform my
duty without the phone in my hand. I feel I am totally cut off from my friends.
I have been contemplating if it would be possible for me to wriggle out of this
mess and the short visit to Korea was blessing in disguise to remain without talking over mobile phone for two weeks. Nonetheless, the mobile was extensively used to connect through social media.
The impact? I realized that, I
for one that those who really needed to get in touch with me did manage to do
so. There were the landline and the internet. But the best thing about being
without mobile connection was, there was no mobile flirtation, or rather, no flirtation
with mobile and there was no phoneplay. Nothing phoney about it!
Finally, did I suffer from nomophobia, the fear of being out of mobile contact? I'll be honest. A wee bit YES and a good deal NO.
